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Assange welcome to stay

Europe Correspondent Philip Williams discusses the Ecuadorean Foreign Minister's statement that Julian Assange is welcome to stay in his country's embassy in London for a long as he wants.

Transcript

EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: Talks between Britain and Ecuador have ended with no breakthrough over the future of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Mr Assange remains holed up in the South American country's London embassy. But British Foreign Secretary William Hague and his Ecuadorian counterpart Ricardo Patino agreed to establish a working group to try to resolve the diplomatic standoff. Mr Assange fled to the embassy a year ago to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of sexual assault and rape which he denies.

Joining us now with the latest is Europe correspondent Philip Williams.

Phil, is there any prospect that Julian Assange will be leaving that Ecuadorian embassy any time soon?

PHILIP WILLIAMS, EUROPE CORRESPONDENT: Not really. Nothing we've heard of in the last few hours gives any rise for any optimism that he will be leaving that embassy, either to go to Sweden or to Ecuador.

I've just come back from a press conference with Ricardo Patino, the Foreign Minister, the Ecuadorian Foreign Minister who's just come back, who's just come back - who's just finished his talks with William Hague, and clearly there's been really no substantive progress at all. He spoke of spending up till four o'clock this morning, 4 am this morning talking to Julian Assange, and here's a little of what he said about Julian Assange's position.

RICARDO PATINO, ECUADORIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (voiceover translation): He said he was strong enough to at least stay in our embassy for five years if he is not granted safe passage. I would consider it a total injustice if he has to spend more time in our embassy. But I just wanted to reply as regards to his state of mind. He said that he was in good spirits and he said that he preferred being at the Ecuadorian embassy rather than being in the US legal system.

EMMA ALBERICI: Phillip, Britain and Ecuador have agreed to create a working group to help resolve the diplomatic impasse. Presumably the Ecuadorians are looking for a way to bring him to their country.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: Yes, they are. That's their ultimate aim and they say that Britain should now, on current legal advice, be able to do that. But that's the problem; the British say their legal advice is they have to hand him over to the Swedes and the Ecuadorians say, "Well according to our legal system, we - he should be able to come to our country." So they've got this group that's going to be formed and discuss those legal issues, see if they can find some common ground. But given the disparity between the two sides, I think that is highly unlikely.

EMMA ALBERICI: Now, while we're on the topic of leaks, we just heard about The Guardian reporting Britain spying on politicians during the G20 summit in 2009. Now is there any clue as to what they were trying to find out from their visiting dignitaries and any details about how they were going about it?

PHILIP WILLIAMS: Well, yes, some detail. Look, here's the article that's just been published today. Really we don't have the details of exactly the information that they were after. But if these reports are accurate, then it seems they were targeting Turkey, South Africa - seen as friendly nations - but also the Russians, and by using various means of tapping, setting up these internet cafes that delegates would be encouraged to go into at these conferences and by various means basically finding out their logins and whatever so that they could actually be tracked after they left the conference - well after they left the conference. Pretty shocking claims if they're true. What we don't have is any specific information as to whether it's possible that the Australian delegations were also bugged in this way and that would be fascinating to see if that was the case, but we don't have that specific information. But, yes, it does point to a very active Secret Service operation going on here, if it's true, and obviously cooperation between the Americans too. They're implicated into the claims that they tried to tap the phones of Medvedev, the Prime Minister at the time - President, sorry, at the time of Russia. So, very murky spy details. What's the reaction of the British Government? Zippo. The Prime Minister David Cameron was asked and of course he had a big "no comment", as is always the case whenever security issues like this are raised.